The Orchestra della Toscana (ORT), together with conductor Ryan McAdams and soloist Pietro de Maria, will bring the compositions of Jessie Montgomery, Saint-Saëns and Mendelssohn to the stage on Tuesday, March 15, at Florence’s Teatro Verdi (via Ghibellina 99) at 9 pm. The orchestra and the musicians will give a repeat concert in Poggibonsi (March 16), Empoli (March 18) and Livorno (March 19). ORT will play a piece from Jessie Montgomery’s 2012 Strum [...]
Until December 19: LO SFREGIO (THE SCAR). Second floor, Uffizi Gallery. Open 8:15 am – 6:30 pm. Admission included in the €12 ticket to the Uffizi. Photographs by Ilaria Sagaria from 2018 accompanied by a marble bust of Costanza Piccolomini from 1638 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini are currently on show at the Galleria degli Uffizi in an exhibition titled “Lo Sfregio” (“The Scar”). It tells a story of violence against women in [...]
The Orchestra della Toscana (ORT) will inaugurate a new season of music at Teatro Verdi (via Ghibellina 99) on October 8 at 9 pm, which includes the start of the “Voices from Purgatory” (Voci dal Purgatorio) series, conceptualized by the contemporary musician Richard Danielpour. The “Divine Comedy” inspired work is the first piece on the program, followed by compositions by Dvorak and Schumann. The concert is being headed by John Axelrod, who has [...]
Until October 10: ITALY: FROM ALINARI TO MASTERS OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY and MASSIMO VITALI: FULL AND EMPTY. Forte Belvedere. Hours: Tuesday to Friday 4 pm – 9 pm; Saturday and Sunday from 10 am – 9 pm; closed on Mondays. Free admission. Journey through time with Museo Novecento of 20th and 21st Century Art’s newest photography project “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Italy’s self-portrait in the mirror” (“Ieri, Oggi, Domani: Italia autoritratto allo specchio”) [...]
The first phase of restoration of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Crucifix of Carmine has been completed in Florence. The artist, Ambrogio Lorenzetti created the crucifix for the church San Niccolò del Carmine in Siena in the 1330s. A pre-renaissance work of art, Lorenzetti’s work had been preserved until water damage in the 19th century severely ruined the color, flaking off large pieces of paint in the process. Despite the damage, the face of Christ was [...]
The Orchestra della Toscana (ORT) presents a celebration of Tango music on the evening of February 18. The live concert, bringing to life the joyful music of Argentina and Spain, will be conducted by Nil Vendetti in onstage at Teatro Verdi and broadcast to a virtual audience. Nil Vendetti, hired as a principal guest conductor by the ORT in 2019 at age 24, trained as a cellist at the Conservatory of Puglia and [...]
2021 marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Florentine poet, Dante Aligheri. While the first celebratory event took place in October with Massimo Sestini’s photo exhibition, the Uffizi is leading Florence into a year of over 50 scheduled events with a virtual show of drawings of Dante’s Divine Comedy by Italian Mannerist artist, Federico Zuccari. “A riveder le stelle” (To See the Stars Again) will be the first time all 88 Zuccari’s [...]
Tuscans, again in lockdown, think longingly of holiday traditions with streets filled with shoppers, meeting friends for an aperitivo in the evening or finding that perfect gift along with gluhwein and a bratwurst at the Heidelburger Christmas market in Piazza Santa Croce. New Year’s Eve normally brings gala dinners and live music in the piazzas until dawn. With the online Jazz4Christmas series, what could be cozier than to settle into your favorite chair [...]
Work has resumed on the restoration of a piece of art, an immense sculpture by Michelangelo in Florence’s Opera del Duomo Cathedral Museum, which began in November 2020 and was interrupted by the COVID-19 lockdown and health emergency. The project is being financed by Friends of Florence. Work is being conducted behind glass panels so that visitors to the museum will be able to see all the stages of the restoration as they [...]
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan, China, journalists have been dutifully reporting on the emergency from all locations. Rai foreign correspondent Giovanna Botteri has been reporting from Beijing, giving live TV updates on the evolution of the virus. Viewers, however, have become more focused on her plain black v-neck and lack of statement make up than on her journalism. After Botteri was critiqued for always wearing the same shirt and [...]
